Rail strike to hit NSW coal industry

Pacific National carries about 300,000 tonnes of coal a day, and the strike could affect the ability of other rail companies to use the track network.
Photo: Andrew Quilty

by
Mark Skulley

The NSW coal industry faces gridlock during a 24-hour strike on Friday over stalled negotiations between Pacific National and rail workers.

The Rail Tram and Bus Union gave notice yesterday of the legally protected strike to Pacific National, an arm of the ASX-listed transport and logistics group
Asciano
.

Pacific National carries about 300,000 tonnes of coal a day, and the strike could affect the ability of other rail companies to use the track network.

Two coalminers, Xstrata and
Whitehaven
, warned last week that any strike would hurt their operations. They flagged possible legal intervention even though they are not a party to the bargaining.

RTBU national secretary Bob Nanva said yesterday that Pacific National had “deliberately brought these negotiations to a standstill", and that its customers should ask why the company was “conducting an ideological union-busting campaign".

“Negotiation is a two-way street. While the union is receptive to revised offers, Pacific National has barely budged."

But the director of Pacific National Coal, David Irwin, said the company had looked at “every possible angle" in trying to reach agreement before talks ended on Sunday, but the union had not budged on its bargaining positions.

The company has offered a three-year enterprise agreement with annual pay rises of 4 per cent a year. It said it could not afford the union’s claim for a pay rise of 9 per cent in the first year, followed by two annual increases of 7 per cent.

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Mr Irwin said the parties had met 27 times over a year and that Pacific National had agreed to 93 of the 103 initial claims, before offering to enter into binding arbitration by the Fair Work Commission on the remaining differences.

He said Pacific National would consider further legal moves before the strike, but its options appeared to be limited given that industrial action had been approved in a secret ballot.

Pacific National has angered the union and some of its 840 NSW coal workers by pledging that the pay rises would be cut to 3 per cent if strikes went ahead, with strikers also losing about $2500 in back pay.

Mr Irwin said that about 50 employees had expressed interest in accepting the 4 per cent pay rise and they were expected to work if the strike occurred.

The union has said that the company’s offer was voted down by 85 per cent of the workforce in December, before members voted to endorse industrial action in January.

Mr Nanva claimed the company was “disconnected from the needs of its workforce" and expressed concern over its “unorthodox industrial tactics". This included offering higher pay to employees who did not strike and the “unprecedented intervention of unrelated third parties such as Xstrata and Whitehaven.“

Xstrata has contracts for Pacific National to carry about 30 million tonnes a year of coal from its Hunter Valley mines for export from Newcastle, and from the Tahmour mine south-west of Sydney to Port Kembla.

It fears industrial action could disrupt the operations of its own fleet of locomotives, which is operated by Freighter Australia and uses the same rail networks.

Mr Irwin said the strike at Pacific National would affect other train operators. “To use the Hunter Valley example, we’ve got close to 30 trains that will be stopping and there’s not that many places for trains to stop. Everywhere they stop, it’s going to impact one way or another on other rail operators.

“We know, particularly in the thermal coal market, our customers are hurting and aren’t making money. So, in the environment where they’re lumbered with all the fixed costs of their business and they're not exporting coal, it’s certainly going to hurt."